Free as a bird?

After Channel 4's expose of chicken hell, are you fed up with people telling us what to eat? Or does battery food make you retch?

Date Published: 10/01/2008

Anne Benson says chicken on the cheap is a false economy

I get this argument all the time, why should I pay more for one free-range/organic chicken when I can get, at least, two for £5 at my local supermarket: Don’t you know I have a family to feed? On a budget?

Eat a free-range or
an organic chicken once and you will never look back,
I promise you.
If it means chicken becomes more
of a treat than
an everyday
food, so be it

Let's start with some statistics. The average supermarket chicken contains nearly a pint of water, and a pint of water weighs over 1lb.

In the average 35 days of its miserable life (this is half the time it took to mature 30 years ago), your fast growing supermarket chicken's meat often contains as much fat as a Big Mac.

You do the maths, and the pound-for-pound argument which says that intensively reared meat is better value than the free range or organic starts to collapse.

The places these intensely-reared chickens spend their short lives are not for the squeamish. In a typical shed, you can get around 25,000 birds all packed together with no natural light. “Night time” lasts just four hours a day as this encourages the chickens to sleep less and eat more. They start to peck each other, fight, and become more and more aggressive.

Your intensively reared chicken can also contain traces of antibiotics, have hock burns from standing in its own excrement and bones so spongy they can be minced up to make hot dogs.

Farmers rearing them can often expect to be paid just 3p a bird by supermarkets.

So why do it? Well, we all love breast meat don’t we? So the more we can fatten chickens up on the cheap, the better. That is the theory anyway, but let’s get down to the real point. These birds don’t taste of anything; they are floury, tasteless and worthless.

The fact that chickens don't get any exercise, means they put on a huge quantity of fat.

There are now more calories from fat in the average chicken than from protein. And the fat is impossible to avoid because much of it is under the skin and soaks into the meat during cooking.

Eat a free-range/organic chicken once and you will never look back, I promise you. If it means chicken becomes more of a treat than an everyday food so be it. Give me one delicious, juicy free-range chicken baked in its juices, bursting with flavour, over sawdust anytime.

If cost is still the issue, think about how much you can get from one chicken. A roast one day, then use the leftovers for a risotto or stir-fry, then take the carcass and create a great soup (including the giblets). Already you have just got three dishes out of one bird. Add more vegetables and have less meat and it is even a healthier option.

Indulge, celebrate, enjoy and know that what you are eating is not filling your belly with chemicals and watery rubbish but just beautiful, satisfying taste.

Anne Benson is chairman of Wirral Farmers’ Market and one of the organisers of the Wirral Food and Drink Festival.

We don't know how lucky we are, says Jennifer Eccles

I remember chicken as a huge treat when I was younger, and I'm not going back to the War either. I'm thinking of the 1980s. We were Thatcher's offspring and, dwelling in the unemployment wasteland that was Knowsley, there was precious little money to spend on luxuries. For most, chicken was as rare as hens' teeth.

But how times have changed. Increased production technology means good, cheap food is available to all. Chicken is one of the best sources of protein there is, and with prices as low as £2 for a whole bird, it is now within reach of most people with mouths to feed.

It is healthier than red meat and versatile too. Even if an intensively reared chicken is lacking a bit in flavour, surely that's not the point if you've got hungry bellies. And everyone can add a bit of seasoning!

We really don't know how lucky we are. I'm not about to go on about the starving millions in Africa, or to start saying “for what we are about to receive”, but don't you think this stuff about only buying free range and organic all sounds a bit elitist and, well, ungrateful?

Are animals really more important than people? I think we should grow more chickens in the barns and try to feed the world this cheap, wholesome protein

Are animals really more important than people? I think we should grow more chickens in the barns and try to feed the world this cheap, wholesome protein.

Around 90 per cent of us clearly can see sense on this, which is why we go for the obvious option. People don't give a damn if their Saturday night chow mein, or their sandwiches for school have come from a feathered friend which has had a nice life pecking about in the woods or not. Not when they've got a massive mortgage to worry about.

And you can tut-tut about Bernard Matthews and Turkey Twizzlers, but you might well find that your posh organic chicken that you've just lashed £8 on has come from none other than Guess Who. It's a lucrative and cynical business.

Free range chickens aren't really free range anyway. Some are housed in a huge shed with just a small opening into the outside world, the size of an A4 sheet of paper, miles away, especially if there are 10,000 other chickens obscuring the view! Others are often more diseased than battery birds, owing to drinking from waterholes contaminated by faeces. And don't even get me started on the risk of a bird flu epidemic starting among outdoor flocks.

Let's be realistic: The slaughter of any animal is not a nice business. You either eat meat or you don't.

So forget whatever your chicken is meant to be pumped up with, this really is the only argument that holds water.